


anything you can do

by TheQueenInTheNorth



Series: kasinara soulmate aus [19]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, F/M, Soulmates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-05
Updated: 2020-07-05
Packaged: 2021-03-04 20:21:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,256
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25092283
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheQueenInTheNorth/pseuds/TheQueenInTheNorth
Summary: They say anything your soulmates learns, you will know how to do, too.
Relationships: Kasius/Sinara (Marvel)
Series: kasinara soulmate aus [19]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/969468
Comments: 6
Kudos: 8





	anything you can do

Sinara sat cross-legged on the floor by the water tank in front of their house; it was the best spot to be as the sun started setting, warmed up all day and out of the way of the older kids.

Sometimes, she brought a small snack to savour, if she could scrounge one up or keep something from her breakfast. Today, she had brought a book.

It wasn’t very interesting, now that she had it, but it had her name on it and so she’d taken it when she’d climbed through Crooked Cray’s open window on a dare.

She’d been hoping to find a loose coin or those sweeties he always chewed. There had been nothing good around though. The dusty bookshelf didn’t see much use from what she could tell but this book had her name on it.

Except it wasn’t her name, it was the name of some queen and the book was all about her.

She scowled at it, then looked up nervously when a shadow fell over her spot.

It wasn’t Cray come to demand his book back and give her a hiding. It was her momma.

“What have you got there, Rara?”she asked.

“A book.” She held it up for her to see.“It’s not a story. It’s a -” she squinted at the cover and sounded out the word,“biography. I think that just means boring.”

Momma giggled at that and booped her nose,“And what are you doing with that biography, then?”

Sinara wrinkled her nose but giggled, too.“It has my name on it so I wanted to read it. It’s not about me, though. It’s about some queen.”

“The Good Queen Sinara, I’d wager. You were named for,”Momma said and broke off with a confused tilt of her head.“How do you know it’s about her? Did someone read it to you?”

“I read it,”Sinara said. Momma’s eyes only went wider. Sinara shrugged.“Well, I started it. Just a few pages.”

Momma was still staring at her like she’d grown a second head.“Where did you learn to read?”

Sinara tilted her head, too, the crease at the bridge of her nose the mirror of her momma’s.“What do you mean?”

It was a very odd question.

Momma had never asked how she’d learned to run or climb or hop on one foot. All those things had sort of just happened as she’d gotten bigger and tried them, the way she’d sometimes looked at letters until they’d suddenly made words.

“How do you know how to read?”Momma pressed.

“I dunno.” Sinara frowned at the book as if it might provided her an answer. She hadn’t realised an answer was needed. The book didn’t offer one.“I just do. From in my head.”

Momma sat down next to her. She was too big for the gap between the water tank and the wall so Sinara scrambled into her lap. That was much better.

“So no one taught you?”Momma made sure.

Sinara shook her head.“I’m good, though. I can do all the big words and everything. Want me to read you a bit? It’s all boring but I can anyway, if you want, Momma.”

“How about I tell you a story instead, hm?” Momma kissed her forehead and wrapped her arms around her.“Have you ever heard of soulmates?”

Sinara hadn’t but she liked stories. Even if they were all silly, about your soulmate learning something and then you having that skill, too.

* * *

Kasius huffed and tugged his jacket around himself more tightly. Why he had believed Faulnak actually wanted to spend time with him was beyond him, now that he was all alone in the woods.

His brother had walked him there, all nice and chatty the whole way, and then told Kasius to close his eyes so he could get him his surprise.

It had taken him a lot longer than he was proud to admit to realise there was no surprise and Faulnak wasn’t coming back. He blinked against the traitorous tears stinging at the corners of his eyes.

It was his birthday. He’d thought Faulnak really wanted to be nice. He wasn’t, most days, but it was Kasius’ birthday and the first one, too, since their mother -

He blinked faster. It didn’t really help.

He didn’t know which way home was. He didn’t think it would matter even if he did. They’d walked a really, really long time. And anyway, neither Faulnak nor Father would even want him back. His mother would but his mother was gone.

Maybe he should just wait for the cold or whatever lurked in these woods to get him. He might even get to see his mother again, if there was something after.

He was too afraid to face his death, though. He was just a little scaredy birdie, like Faulnak always said. But birds were good at nests and there were a lot of branches around.

He built himself a shelter and crawled into it, listening to the woods come to life around him until he couldn’t take it anymore and pressed his hands against his ears. He cried himself to sleep, eventually.

The sun had long risen but Kasius didn’t dare leave his shelter. It had kept him safe all night and his rumbling stomach didn’t hurt enough yet to convince him to brave the woods.

He would have to go back out at some point but he was determined to hold out as long as he could. He held out until he heard a familiar voice call his name.

“Kaznaq!”he called back and scrambled out of the shelter.“I’m here, Kaznaq!”

His uncle rushed to him and scooped him up. Kasius stiffened for a moment before awkwardly twisting his arms around Uncle Kaznaq’s neck. He’d slept on one arm and was rigid with cold all over, and didn’t get many hugs, since his mother was gone. Uncle Kaznaq had only returned to the capital a few days ago.

“Faulnak wouldn’t say where he left you,”Uncle Kaznaq said and squeezed him harder.

It hurt, a little. Getting hugged was nice, though, so Kasius didn’t complain. Anyway, it warmed him up, too.

Uncle Kaznaq was shaking. He probably was cold, too. Kasius pressed closer against him.

“I was worried,”his uncle confessed. He rearranged his hold on Kasius so he was balanced on his hip and they could look at each other.“Thank the lucky stars you found that shelter.”

Kasius puffed his chest out proudly.“I didn’t find it. I built it.”

Uncle Kaznaq blinked at him silently for a few seconds, then looked to the shelter and back to Kasius.“You built it? How did you know how to do that?”

“What do you mean, how?” Kasius frowned. It sounded almost like a trick question, like the ones Father would ask just to have a reason to yell at him. Uncle Kaznaq didn’t do that, though, so Kasius just answered him.“It’s just pretty much common sense, isn’t it?”

His uncle still looked bewildered.

“I just knew,”Kasius elaborated.“I knew how to do it inside my brain and then I just put it outside of my brain.”

“Hm.” It was a kindly sound but still one of confusion.“And no one taught you?”

“My brain taught me,”Kasius said. It really wasn’t that hard a concept to grasp. Uncle Kaznaq must have been very tired. He broke it down to an even more obvious example,“Like how it is with baking bread.”

Uncle Kaznaq’s frown just deepened.“Bread? Who taught you to bake bread?”

“My brain,”Kasius reiterated with an exasperated sigh and a roll of his eyes. After a few seconds of silence, he grew a little uncomfortable with his uncle’s obvious bewilderment.“Does - does your brain not teach you things?”

“No,”Uncle Kaznaq said, but he said it with a warm smile.“I think I know why yours does, though.”

He explained, and Kasius was a bit disappointed his brain wasn’t actually coming up with new skills for him out of nowhere, but he was a lot excited to know he had a soulmate, somewhere out in the universe, baking bread and building shelters.

* * *

Sinara was fast on the uptake and had a rather good mind for strategy. That, unfortunately, did not do very much to help her keep up in the mental warfare exercises with the recruits from families of distinction, or at least commoners who had been groomed for military service since birth.

They had years and years of practicing different strategies, traps, and tactics. She had a few months of pretending she didn’t miss her family or wonder why they’d sent her away.

They had a lot of advantages she did not have, yet she had one of her own: A soulmate with military strategic training she had yet to receive - and might never receive.

She saw patterns in things she ought not to see them in, caught on to subtleties she could barely explain. It got easier and easier, with her own perceptiveness and her soulmate’s knowledge bleeding through to her.

They probably were highborn, she thought derisively, with all the education and advantages they seemed to receive. It was a good thing that soulmates didn’t necessarily ever meet. She would probably like them about as much as she liked Tyan, who relentlessly mocked her for being gutter scum - nor would her soulmate be thrilled, either. At least they were helpful in this. In having taught her to read, too, if she was honest.

Here, the lowborn recruits like her were taught just enough to somehow scrape by by the skin of their teeth, to keep up so long until they'd be used as cannon fodder somewhere or other.

Sinara did more than keep up. Sinara excelled.

Some days, she almost thought it might be enough to make up for her lack of family name.

* * *

Kasius hated combat training with a passion. He was destined for command by virtue of his birth and there had been plenty esteemed generals who had never seen the thick of battle; he had read all about them. There was of course something to be said for learning the basics of fighting but there was no good reason to force him into so many sessions, not when even General Krenyk had cautiously suggested to his father that his talents would better be suited to be refined in strategy meetings and planning sessions.

The whole thing was just a poor attempt to get the weakness out of him, to stop him from being too soft. It was an excuse for Faulnak to beat him to his heart’s content without having to feign some sort of brotherly affection.

In many ways, Kasius was resigned to it.

Which lead to him being just as surprised as anyone else when he went from being trapped in Faulnak’s stranglehold to standing over him in the blink of an eye, blood streaming from Faulnak’s nose, Kasius’ foot raised to deliver another kick.

He stomped next to Faulnak’s head, swallowed around the lump in his throat, and said,“Excuse me, brother. I have an idea for a battle formation I ought to write down before it slips my mind.”

He managed to keep his steps measured enough not to look like he was fleeing the training rooms. A near hysterical laugh was fighting to escape him but he forced it down, instead focusing on what had happened.

Muscle memory, he realised. Not his own, of course. His soulmate had to be a good fighter; that talent was now in him, too, somewhere.

If he managed to stop thinking long enough for his body to just instinctively move, he could hold his own very well. He just couldn’t figure out how not to overthink everything.

Occasionally, though, he laid Faulnak out and eventually, his brother no longer taunted him into the senseless beatings he liked to call sparring, and that was a victory, of sorts.

* * *

“Sinara,”Kasius managed. Words were strangely difficult. Staying conscious was strangely difficult, now that he thought about it. So was breathing. It was nearly impossible, actually. There was a loud whistling sound that almost drowned out his voice,“What are you doing?”

“Taking your shirt off,”she said and tore it.

The buttons and insignia went flying, forming a cacophony with the rattling and whistling that just wouldn’t stop. He tried to grasp Sinara’s wrist.

“Yeah, I know, not how I thought that would go down either.” There was no real humour to her voice and yet he smiled. She’d never acknowledged all the maybes between them before. Her hand shook as she brushed his hair out of his face.“Get through this and I promise there’ll be candles the next time I tear your clothes off, yeah?”

Her voice was fuzzy. Everything was fuzzy. He couldn’t blink it away.

“What,”he started again and then screamed when her fingers dug into his wound.

The last few days came rushing back to him along with his consciousness.

His generals. The pain of the injuries, the damaged, slow ship. The fever.

“It’s infected,”Sinara said.“I’ll have to operate on -”

“No.” The whistling and rattling came in quicker succession as his breathing became more rapid. Of course. The sounds came from him. That explained things.“You’re not a medic.”

“And you’re not spoiled for choice,”Sinara pointed out.

That was true. Hala was a long way away, and organ failure was not.

“I’ll talk you through it,”he said.

“I’m knocking you out,”Sinara said.“I know what I’m doing.”

There was really no way she could know but there was no real choice. If she didn’t knock him out, the pain would.

“I,”he started.

“None of that,”Sinara cut him off.

She had made a guess at what he had wanted to say, clearly. An entirely accurate guess.

He didn’t want to die without knowing she knew.

Just because they had not crossed every line they shouldn’t didn’t mean they hadn’t crossed plenty.

He tried to speak again but Sinara beat him to it,“Tell me some other time, okay? When you’re not delirious.”

And then her lips brushed his, just for a moment, making him forget all about the pain and fear, hardly aware of the syringe slipping into his skin, not a thought to the fact that she could not know how to save him.

It was as good a death as any. Better than most, with her by his side.

She was still by his side when he woke up again, sitting on the edge of the bed and smiling down at him softly.

“Told you I know what I’m doing,”she said, brushing her fingers against his cheek.

“You did.” Even if he still wasn’t clear on how, but there were far more important things to focus on.“Will you kiss me again?”

She rolled her eyes but fondly so, and then leaned down to kiss him.

Well worth almost dying for.

* * *

Exile was quite nice, as far as Sinara was concerned.

She’d never wanted to be a soldier and fight the empire’s battles; she liked being left to her own devices. There wasn’t terribly much to do on this outpost, that was true, but there was enough. The food was good and plenty, no one was ordering her about, and she and Kasius could take as much time as they wanted to just stay in bed.

She had fought herself not to allow herself to fall for a prince but an exiled prince was something else. She could let an exiled prince whisper sweet nothings to her all night. She could even whisper some back, sometimes, when she was feeling especially sappy, and especially bold.

She could even lounge about in nothing but his shirt without feeling strange about it, working on her whittling.

Kasius was sitting across from her and reading. Or, more accurately, had been reading. Now the book was on his lap and he was staring at her.

She stared back, tilting her head in silent question.

“Nothing.” Kasius smiled.“I just love you. That’s all.”

She still did not see how he could say the words so easily but she didn’t doubt he meant them.

She smiled back and offered him her knife.“Would you like to try?”

“If you promise not to laugh at me,”he said. His eyes were twinkling with mirth.“I’ve never tried this, you know.”

“Try a flower,”Sinara suggested before she could think about the words.

Her father had showed her a simple design, back in the days when she’d still had a father.

Maybe she should have been surprised when Kasius finished his flower and it looked just like the ones that had sat on their windowsill and collected coal dust.

She wasn’t.

Maybe she should have told Kasius.

She didn’t.

Things were good the way they were.

* * *

“Couldn’t you just recalibrate the neuron transmission?”

Kasius looked up from the chip he’d been fiddling with and looked at Sinara in astonishment. She always said she’d rather leave his science nonsense - her wording, not his - up to him and now here she was, suggesting the solution he’d also just come to regarding the issue the suppressor modules had begun to present.

“How do you know that?”he asked.

Sinara’s eyes went wide, her lips moving soundlessly for a few seconds, and then she shrugged.

“Pretty much just common sense, isn’t it?”she said, far too casually.

“I suppose,”Kasius said.

He could see her shoulders relax.

The design for the inhibitors had predated his improvements, of course, but he really ought to be the only one to fully comprehend the new modules without extensive explanation.

There was, he knew, one other person who ought to have the skills to come to the same conclusion as Sinara had just now: his soulmate.

He filed that realisation away for later consideration.

* * *

Sinara groaned, pulling the covers back towards her.

“I’m cold,”Kasius complained.

“Go fix the thermostat, then,”Sinara said.

He tugged on the covers again.“You go fix it. I never learned how to fix it.”

Sinara huffed and yanked the covers away from him. She wasn’t even cold but it was about the principle at that point. He’d whined and whined and whined; he could’ve easily just gone and fixed it by now.

“You know how to fix it,”Sinara said.“You’re just too lazy to get up and actually fix it.”

“You were an army mechanic,”Kasius countered.“You know how to fix it.”

“Exactly.” She rolled her eyes.“I know how to fix it so you know how to fix it, too.”

It took Kasius’ slow, pleased grin spreading over his face for her to realise what she’d said.“I knew it!”

“You could’ve just asked like a normal person,”Sinara grumbled.

She couldn’t stop herself from returning his ridiculously goofy smile, though. It was nice to have it out in the open, really. She hadn’t known whether to bring it up, or how to do so, even if she’d wanted to. The ‘I love you’s had slowly gotten easier but ‘also, I think we’re soulmates’ just seemed a little… over the top.

Kasius kissed her forehead.“And have you pretend you don’t know what I’m on about?”

“I resent that accusation,”she quipped and pulled him in for a proper kiss.

There were better ways to keep warm than fixing the thermostat.


End file.
